Determination of the charge state distribution of a highly ionized coronal Au plasma

K L Wong; M J May; P Beiersdorfer; K B Fournier; B Wilson; G V Brown; P Springer; P A Neill; C L Harris

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.235001

Determination of the charge state distribution of a highly ionized coronal Au plasma

Phys Rev Lett. 2003 Jun 13;90(23):235001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.235001. Epub 2003 Jun 10.

Authors

K L Wong¹, M J May, P Beiersdorfer, K B Fournier, B Wilson, G V Brown, P Springer, P A Neill, C L Harris

Affiliation

¹ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551, USA.

PMID: 12857265
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.235001

Abstract

We present the first definitive measurement of the charge state distribution of a highly ionized gold plasma in coronal equilibrium. The experiment utilized the Livermore electron beam ion trap EBIT-II in a novel configuration to create a plasma with a Maxwellian temperature of 2.5 keV. The charge balance in the plasma was inferred from spectral line emission measurements which accounted for charge exchange effects. The measured average ionization state was 46.8+/-0.75. This differs from the predictions of two modeling codes by up to four charge states.